Casualties show that Brown is fighting the wrong war in the wrong way

Thursday 30 July 2009 12:59 BST

The true cost of the bloody campaign in Helmand is now being revealed, though slowly, with the publication of the casualty figures at the beginning of this month.

Roughly 100 wounded were treated at Camp Bastion in that period, and more have been killed and wounded since. The latest fatalities bring the number killed in action this month to 22, and the total of British combat deaths in Afghanistan to 191.

With the ratio of wounded running at roughly 10 to every soldier killed, the Army has been correct to warn the Government, the civil servants at the MoD as well as the politicians, that the country is at war in Afghanistan. War means sacrifice and commitment, including providing the forces with what they need despite the short-term cost to the Treasury.

This is something that Mr Brown and his colleagues in his unpublicised war cabinet have been reluctant to admit, at least in public.

An attrition rate of some 250 killed and wounded in just over a month is not something that a force of 9,100 soldiers, however well trained and motivated, can sustain for more than a month or so.

Given the narrow gains being made in missions like Operation Panther's Claw and the way most of the casualties are inflicted, there is an inescapable conclusion that Gordon Brown and his government are fighting the wrong war in the wrong way.

Much has been made of the success, and the sudden halt to Panther's Claw, an operation of 3,000 troops to clear the Helmand valley south and west of the capital Lashkar Gah. It was after news started coming out of the true level of casualties, first reported in this paper, that the operation was called off. Medical resources, always stretched, were at breaking point.

The heart of the dilemma lies to the north at the market town of Sangin, strategically placed on the Helmand river and in the heart of poppy-growing country. Always a scene of fighting, the town has been lightly garrisoned lately, of necessity.

It has at times been patrolled by only 75 soldiers of the 2 Rifles battle group. They could not hope to dominate the whole sprawling community — so the Taliban have been able to sneak back and place their deadly buried bombs, the so-called improvised explosive devices. These have caused proportionately far more death and injury to British servicemen and women, and Afghans, than any other form of fighting including "contacts" or firefights with Taliban gunmen. Many devices are found before they can kill but an awful lot get through.

For this reason General Sir Richard Dannatt has asked for more IED counter-measure equipment as a priority over helicopters.

Now the Government must decide to back the troops in Helmand with all they can to gain the necessary tactical win and respite before they lay down a credible, and affordable, long-term strategy for Britain in Afghanistan. This is likely to mean more reinforcements so hot spots like Sangin can be properly occupied and patrolled and the Taliban supply lines choked.

Two examples from the past seem particularly apt to remember today. The international forces, those that are prepared to fight that is, appear to be getting to the same point as the Russian forces in their operation in Afghanistan in the Eighties, when they found they could not pin an elusive foe and hold enough of the country for enough of the time.

The other reference is the Americans in Vietnam where strategic drift led to quagmire and defeat. The Americans kidded themselves they could trust a perennially weak and untrustworthy local ally and carried on because they could not think of a better alternative.

The UK is at war in Afghanistan, as today's terrible casualty figures underline. Mr Brown must back his commanders, and this time without his customary manoeuvre of matching fine words with capping of force numbers, funding and supplies — including medical packs.

He has to back the forces to avoid defeat, now a real prospect. Then he must lay the ground for a real strategy for achieving realistic goals in the region — and then getting out.